March 21, 2004Head Coach Rene Portland
"I'm pleased to be in the second round. Games like these are always dangerous for a lot of reasons and I felt in the first half our team was very focused. We stuck to what we wanted to do, forced turnovers, obviously did a good job on the boards and did what we needed to do to control the game. The second half I felt like we lost a little focus, but we're kids and those things happen."
"We really just needed to play together. We needed to get the fast break going, we needed to communicated on defense, we needed to make sure we had that spurt in the first half which would be really important for us. In the beginning when we started, not slow, but playing the game, that didn't surprise me. We just needed to get revved up."
"I think we went out and took care of the basketball, I think that types of opponents create some things that you have to work real hard to control in your own game and I think our team did that. The rebounding was good, we forced them into some bad shots. I have to be happy with that, we shot 50 percent, a lot of good things."
"Our defense starts with our guards and I think we have three terrific guards in our backcourt. Tanisha Wright spurs the defense up front and Kelly [Mazzante] and Jess [Strom] play the wings. I think they do a terrific job in any kind of defense pressuring the ball so that it doesn't go inside. I thought all of our post players went in tonight and played agile enough and played the high post well and made sure not a lot of shots went up. I do think that everything we do is dictated by those three guards."
"We have hosted the tournament at Penn State and I'm sure coaches felt like I feel right now and I've also been to Ruston [La.] one too many times. Unfortunately that's the way the tournament is at this stage of the game. Hopefully women's basketball makes some great strides. Our team worked very hard this season to be the No. 1 seed and that's what we need to focus on, the hard work that we did. The Big Ten is one of the top conferences for attendance so we're used to people going after us."
"I think they [Virginia Tech] have a terrific point guard and we have a terrific point guard, so that head to head should be really interesting to watch. I like the athleticism of their two forwards, they're really doing a terrific job. I think we have an advantage with three point shooting. I think she [Ieva Kublina] does a terrific job with the fact that she can go inside and outside. I think we match up really well, even in the post position. I think they do more post to post work than we do, so that will be a real challenge for us. We need to show a little bit more than we did tonight and there's a little bit more in our arsenal."
Penn State Student-Athlete Kelly Mazzante
"This was the first time we've been in zone almost the entire game and I think we did a good job of communicating. We really tried to focus on our rebounding because that was a plus for us. I think we communicated well and played good as a team defensively."
"We did a lot of good things tonight, we had a lot of people contributing, everyone on the bench got to play. I think it was a good example of how good we are but we can show that we're a lot better."
Penn State Student-Athlete Jess Strom
"I think with this win we take momentum into the game [vs. Virginia Tech]. It's going to be tough playing on their home court but we play a lot of tough teams in the Big 10 on their home courts, so I think we're prepared for it."
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